


A Divinity That Shapes Our Ends

by LiterallyThePresident



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: How many Shakespeare references can I cram into one fic, M/M, Shakespeare Quotations, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 17:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18196967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiterallyThePresident/pseuds/LiterallyThePresident
Summary: Macbeth, Orsino, and Hamlet walk into a space stationThe punchline is more tragic than you’d think





	A Divinity That Shapes Our Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I’m bored, I’m exhausted, and I fucking love Shakespeare

All the world was a stage, and if Warren Kepler was the treacherous Macbeth, then Daniel Jacobi was his Hamlet. A tragedy waiting to happen, a princely monster, wild madness all wrapped up in one beautiful man. ‘A serpent heart hid with a flowering face’, he’d murmured to Jacobi’s sleeping form, and he’d gotten no response. Maxwell arrived soon after, and they had their Orsino. Loyal and brilliant, unafraid to stand up to them, waxing poetic about machines and robots, things that could never love her back. Her Olivias. Together they made the best team, taking the enemies of Goddard by storm. The greatest threat the world would never know, such stuff as dreams were made of. And that was just the way they liked it.

Then Cutter sent them to the infamous station of no return with a smile, the wild ambition of Lady Macbeth shining in his cold eyes. They rescued Douglas Eiffel from a drifting shuttle en route, and he was Ophelia made flesh, floating listless and pale, utterly helpless. Jacobi took a liking to the man immediately, despite everything, and Warren couldn’t wait to send him drifting down the river. They arrived at the station with no further incident, Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane, and Commander Minkowski stared at him with uncertain yet piercing eyes, Prospero and Beatrice mingling together to form a woman whom Warren was certain he could predict. And when she yanked her Ophelia into her arms, trembling as she held him close, Warren knew she was no threat to them.

Hera, however, was a potential threat. She was uppity and dangerous, Juliet standing tall and proud, determined to forge her own path. Warren had Maxwell deal with her while he dealt with the others. Hilbert feared him, but he was little more than Caliban cowering to hide his hatred. Warren paid him little mind, too caught up in trying to puzzle out Lovelace, her lips curled in a snarl and fire in her eyes, Tybalt brandishing his rapier, protecting her own against an unknown threat. Warren knew he had his work cut out for him. He steeled himself with the thought of his Hamlet trusting him, his Orsino depending on him, of Lady Macbeth expecting nothing but perfection, and got to work.

Things went well, for a time, though Eiffel often blurred the line between Ophelia and Mercutio. Until the mutiny. Until Maxwell died in a manner more befitting Cordelia than gentle Horatio, and Jacobi fell into Hamlet’s melancholy madness. Warren tried vainly to keep them together, but Jacobi’s words were a spiteful soliloquy, his betrayal a dagger in the dark, and Warren’s control over him, over the situation, was as fragile and fading as Polonius behind the curtain.

Cutter and Pryce arrived soon after Eiffel willingly dove into the deep blue, and the station was steeped in midsummer madness for a while, even his Jacobi taken by the fae powers Cutter exerted. Warren found himself at a loss, scared and alone and reconsidering his stance in his precious big picture. Perhaps he was not Macbeth, clever and proud, driven by ambition and pride. Perhaps he was Ariel, trapped on his little island at the behest of powers beyond his control, yearning for power and peace and freedom he could not achieve so long as his cruel master lived.

Eiffel returned, and Cutter held aloft his metaphorical dagger with a smile as his own personal Oberon pulled him under their spell, just like the others. But something was different this time. In a twist of fate, Ophelia broke free of the madness around him, railing against fate and liberating the others with a craftiness Warren hadn’t known the man possessed. He realized then that Eiffel was not Ophelia, but rather Puck. Wild and fey, fierce and tricky and unable to be contained. A playful menace dancing through the station, avoiding Cutter’s every trap, every trick. An unstoppable force and an immovable object all in one, ruining everyone’s carefully laid plans with frightening efficiency, all with a smile on his face and a joke on his lips.

Eiffel was Puck, and Jacobi’s place as Hamlet was falling away before Warren’s very eyes, teetering on the edge between tragedy and fulfillment as he joined the Hephaestus crew without hesitation, looking into Warren’s eyes with a silent plea, asking him to join them. Romeo pleading with Tybalt for peace. But it was the one request that Warren could not grant him, not if he wanted Jacobi to survive this. He finally saw what he’d denied for so long, the madness of Lady Macbeth, the way he was slowly slipping, how it would soon be unclear what was the horse and what was his kingdom. Damned if he let Jacobi be trampled underfoot by the likes of King Lear. So he refused, and he saw the tempest overtake Jacobi’s eyes as his heart shattered anew.

“‘Then out, damned spot.’” he hissed, so quiet that only Warren could hear. His face was stone as Jacobi shoved past him, washing his hands of him forever. Warren struggled to keep his composure, but he managed it. He died alone, in the end. Scotch in hand and the void calling sweetly as he drifted helplessly, so like the trickster he’d once mistaken for Ophelia. He smiled to himself, thinking of his Hamlet. All this time he’d believed Jacobi was the walking tragedy. How wrong he’d been.

“‘To sleep.” he murmured to himself, “Perchance... to dream’.”

The airlock opened, and his little life was rounded with a sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably not my best because it’s 4 am but I hope you all like it!


End file.
